Price sensitive

[jbcohen]

I have noticed that I have become somewhat price sensitive when it comes to buying any form of books. Since I can go through 85 books a year an increase from $8 to $10 while on $2 won't mean much to some people take that $2 and multiply it by 85 books and it comes out to $170 per year and represents a sizable amount of extra dollars per year. Thus it has gotten to the point that I refuse to pay it no matter who wrote the book or how good or bad it is. Has anyone else become price sensitive?

[DrNefario]

I have always tended to use a ceiling price to control my spending, but recently I've concluded that it's probably not working. I still spend a lot, but end up not getting the things I really want.

[Belfaborac]

Considering that paperbacks and ebooks are generally priced at $20 and upwards here in Norway, I'm probably not price sensitive at all, except that I refuse to buy books in this country. Buying from elsewhere I really rarely consider the price at all, since I know it will in every case be significantly less expensive than here at home.

[DiapDealer]

I buy what I'm interested in reading if I have the money to spare when it comes to my attention. If I'm running a little short at the time, I may buy it later (or not at all if I should happen to forget about it).

So in a sense, I'm always price sensitive when it comes to books... but I'm sensitive to my available spare cash, not the actual price of individual books. If I want it, and I can afford it, I buy it. I'm not going to stick an arbitrary ceiling on my book transactions (and I'm certainly never going to calculate what I spend in a year on books—that way lies madness).

[HomeInMyShoes]

You betcha I'm price sensitive. Every time I look at purchasing an e-book I've got to pay more than I want to and more than most other countries pay for it. Let's take a gander at a few of the interesting selections in this month's 100 Kindle deals from Amazon. Used to be a great place to pick up some reads for a deal. Molly Ringwald When it Happens to you for $3.99. Click on it, nope it's $15.17. OOhh, The Sisters Brothers for $2.99, I'd definitely pick that up. Sorry it's not actually even available in Canada. That's right, a firetrucking Canadian-born author, nominated for Canada's best literature prize The Giller, isn't even available in Canada. Hmmm, a Jodi Picoult for $2.99. No, that's $10.35.

Price sensitive, you bet I'm price sensitive. You heard it here boys and girls: E-BOOKS ARE A WASTE OF MONEY!

Someone might want to move this to the Vent and Rant thread.

I hope my Kindle enjoys it's new life as a doorstop.

[Belfaborac]

You should find solace and comfort in the fact that we Norwegians are considerably worse off than even the Canadians.

[sun surfer]

I'm not price sensitive at all, but I have a few factors going into it:

-Some of what I read is old/classic and so is free.
-I don't read a lot throughout the year - just getting to 50 in a year is a challenge for me.
-I'm pretty picky about what I read, so when I want to read something, I want to read it no matter the price (well, unless it were really exorbitant). If it's too too much in ebook, I'd probably try to get a pbook cheap off ebay or something.
-For the most part, I don't buy books until I'm ready to read them. I don't have to worry about impulse buying (anything I'm really interested in I just add to a list), so I guess it's easier to spend more if I have to when I'm just buying the one book I want to read at that moment.

When I am buying though, I do love when I can use discounts, coupons and codes to save money off whatever the price is!

[Apache]

Some authors and books I am not price sensitive at all. With the rest I am.
Apache

[Yapyap]

I'm relatively price-sensitive - there are (less than) a handful of authors / books I would pay $9.99 or more for (in the MUST READ THE MOMENT IT'S RELEASED!!!! category), but with all others, where I expect to enjoy the book on a 3-4 star level (i.e. from "meh, not bad" to "largely enjoyable"), I'm not keen to pay above, say, $6 any more either.

I have a sizeable TBR pile by now though, so with the overwhelming majority of things, I can wait - I stick anything potentially interesting on various wish lists and check the prices whenever BooksOnBoard has a sale or Kobo has some new coupon (Agency pricing does not concern me), etc, and wait - chances are that at some point or another, most of those vaguely-interesting books can eventually be had for under $6. In fact, I think the books I've bought this year average to about $4 by now.

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

You should find solace and comfort in the fact that we Norwegians are considerably worse off than even the Canadians.

And you will hopefully find solace and comfort in the fact that Estonians are considerably worse off than Norwegians. New book prices, locally, are in the 15-25 € range (more towards the higher end); used book prices are in the 10-15 € range, and our salary levels are considerably below Western Europe's, never mind Northern Europe's (or Canada, or the US).

So, yeah, while I'm relatively well off compared to most of my compatriots, that still means my income levels are such which make me price-sensitive, especially with reading ~120-150 books a year; and as I read almost exclusively in English, since the overwhelming majority of books in my favourite genres are written in English, libraries are of no use to me either (nor are friends) and every book I read has to be bought.

[Catlady]

For the most part, I'm not price-sensitive about e-books. The exception is books I already own in paper. The digital version is then a luxury, not a necessity, and I don't like to spend money on luxuries.

[morriss003]

I'm somewhat price sensitive but I tend to be a lot more quality sensitive.

[Dr. Drib]

Your thread has now been moved to the General Discussion forum, since there is no reading recommendation here.



Don
(Moderator)

[John Carroll]

I'm very price sensitive. I'm willing to pay for my books, but if I can get something good for $4.99 rather than $17.99, I'll do it.

Originally Posted by morriss003

I'm somewhat price sensitive but I tend to be a lot more quality sensitive.

Agreed! I'm just not willing to read a book that's bad from the beginning. I always check the sample first.

[Andrew H.]

I'm not very price sensitive; I have far more money than I do time to read, and a lot of what I read is PD.


But even $170/year works out to $3.26/week, which doesn't strike me as excessive for something one spends so much time doing.

[fjtorres]

Everybody is price sensitive.
Some are simply more price-sensitive than others.

(No, I'm not going to apologize to Orwell.)